Get the latest source code from postfix.org, I’ve used version 2.3.3. This was the latest version when I checked. I’m compiling it with several options to help me achieve the flexibility and the security I need. I’m requiring the MySQL support for mail box maintenance, SASL for authentication and the SSL options to enable TLS support. Recently I found that PCRE support is also required if you want to use the complex filtering options in Postfix.

As a precautionary measure, you may want to backup the old Postfix executables before installing the new version. The following commands may be used as an example of how to do this (you can only do this as a root user):

First you need to install the PCRE library (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions), to enable fancy filtering in Postfix. Download the source code from the site, I’ve used version 6.7 in my setup. You can compile and install it by running the following commands for both Intel and PowerPC based macs:

./configure
make
sudo make install

If you made the copy of the original Postfix and installed the PCRE library you are ready to start. Unpack the source into a directory, use the Terminal and ‘cd’ into the directory where you unpacked it. Issue the following commands as a normal user:

For the questions that are asked at the end of the compilation accept the default values.

Please note that for the dependencies on directories I’m assuming you’ve got MySQL installed from my previous instructions. If not please check the location of the MySQL files mentioned in the configuration. You can find out which configuration on your system is active by running the command ‘mysql_config’ as documented here.

From the earlier guide, it was intimated that older installations of mysql didn’t help much with this – I completely refreshed the mysql install as per this documentation, but it’s not made any difference.